9 Jul 2012
EU: Interpretation and Translation in Criminal
Proceedings — Question
Baroness Coussins (Crossbench)
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they expect to be in compliance
with European Council directive 2010/64/EU, on the right to interpretation and
translation in criminal proceedings, by the agreed implementation date of 27
October 2013.
Baroness Coussins (Crossbench)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order
Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-president of the Chartered
Institute of Linguists.
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
My Lords, the Government will take the steps necessary to ensure that
the UK is compliant with the EU directive in good time for its implementation
date.
Baroness Coussins (Crossbench)
My Lords, I understand that the company that the Government have, under
the framework agreement, contracted to provide services to courts and the
police is supplying performance data to the Government which suggest that it is
doing a good job. However, these figures come without any independent
verification or audit and tell a very different story from the complaints we
hear daily from judges and others about the failure to supply interpreters, or
the sending of unqualified people with no experience of simultaneous
interpreting and some people who were simply incompetent-in one case not
understanding the difference between murder and manslaughter. Does the Minister
agree that the UK is at risk of expensive legal action over non-compliance with
the directive, particularly Article 5 about the quality of the service, and
that we should therefore review the framework agreement now?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
No, my Lords, I do not think we are in danger of non-compliance. As I
said in my Answer and, as the noble Baroness indicated, there are some months
to go before the directive comes into play. In the mean time, the Ministry of
Justice has a massive interest in making sure that Applied Language Solutions
provides the quality and service for which it is contracted. We are making
every effort to make sure that that happens.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)
Is the Minister aware of the extent of disruption and delay to criminal
trials as a result of the serious inadequacies in court interpreting? Not only
does it lead to considerable cost but concerns have been raised by judges
across the country, particularly in London, Birmingham and Leeds.
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
My Lords, there have been individual complaints about performance and
there was undoubtedly a very poor start to this contract. However, there have
been improvements and we are talking about a system with some 800 requests a
day for such interpretation. In the first quarter of its operation there were
26,000 requests in 142 languages. One has to get complaints and performance
into perspective, although there is no doubt that a lot was left to be desired
in the performance of the contract in its early stages.
Lord Harrison (Labour)
Has the Minister revised the original estimate of a £12 million saving
as a result of implementing the framework agreement because of all these
additional costs? Have we not arrived at a situation that is no longer just
succumbing to teething problems but is wholly poorly structured in the first
place?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
I do not agree with that. As I said, there were problems at the
beginning of this contract but the performance has improved dramatically. I
presume that the original estimate of a £12 million saving in this first year
will probably not be achieved. That is common sense but this is not a solution
for just this year. It is a long-term solution that we hope will, once it is
bedded down, give the service and quality required.
Baroness Sharples (Conservative)
Can my noble friend say how many languages each interpreter is expected
to speak?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
No. However, there are a number of interpreters who speak more than one language.
At the moment, there are about 1,500 interpreters under contract and they are
equivalent to about 3,000 interpreter persons, which means that many of them
speak two or more languages.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Labour)
My Lords, will the noble Lord tell the House whether the nature, number
and extent of complaints from the courts has gone up or down since the change
was implemented? If it has, as we believe, gone up, what do the Government
intend to do about it?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
Has it gone up since the scheme was implemented? Yes, it has, because
the scheme implements a single supplier that will pay interpreters less than
they were being paid on an ad hoc basis. That combination of greater discipline
in where and when interpreters are hired and at what fee is not likely to be
welcome to the interpreting community. That I understand. But it was the
previous Administration who initiated an inquiry into the efficiency and
effectiveness of the old interpreter system. We have readily acknowledged that
this new system has had teething problems, but there is no ministerial interest
or MoJ interest in having questions such as this time and again about
performance. The supplier has contracted to a high-quality performance, and we
intend to keep it to that.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Labour)
How is the performance of that supplier adequately monitored? Is there
an independent monitoring system?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
There is not an independent monitoring system-there is a client. We are
the client, and we do not intend to pay good money for a shoddy service. As I
have just said, as the client we brought this in because we intended to try to
make substantial savings for the taxpayer on a system that we believed was
slipshod and expensive in its running. When the new system gets bedded down, we
hope that it will give high quality. The monitoring is done by the department
concerned, the MoJ, and we intend to carry out our responsibilities to make
sure that the taxpayer gets value for money.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat)
My Lords, I understand my noble friend's difficulties, about which he
has been telling the House, with so many languages having to be covered. Will
he tell us how many cases have had to be rescheduled because the right
interpreters were not there, and whether that is being monitored by his
department?
Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)
There has always been the problem of interpreters not being there, or
the wrong interpreters being there. This is not something that has happened in
the past 12 months. Indeed, one reason for bringing in a single supplier on a
new contract with very precise contractual obligations was to try to remove
that. I repeat that providing around 100,000 interpreters in 142 different
languages is something of which our justice system should be rather proud.
However, once you operate on that scale across that range of expertise, there
will be mistakes, hiccups, wrong directions and wrong turn-ups. On the whole,
we expect the contract to produce at least 98% performance success, and we
intend to keep the contractor to that.
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